The Police Are Now Paul Ryan's Private Security Force

On Tuesday, September 6th, Paul Ryan spoke at the Whitnall Park
Rotary Club in Greenfield, Wisconsin. For what has become the only
way for even his constituents to see the Congressman during his
summer town halls, tickets were $15. And in what looked like a
polar negative of the healthcare town halls of 2009, Ryan was
disrupted over and over again by those (paying) attendees. Three
were arrested.

One difference: for this private event, taxpayers of Wisconsin
footed the bill, as the Rotary Club used Greenfield detectives to
provide security for what was essentially a private fundraising
event. It’s something the police department there said it has never
done before.

Meanwhile, Ryan was able to find some humor in it all, mocking
the protesters as they were forcibly removed from the room.

Ryan’s spokesman, Kevin Seifert,
said: “[Ryan] has no control over the cost of the event any
more than he has control over the menu.” The $15, it was reasoned,
was for the Rotary Club to cover costs, including lunch. One thing
the private organization did not provide with that $15? The cost of
security.

“There were easily a dozen uniformed officers in the hallway
just outside the banquet room waiting and at least six in suits
inside the room and spread out along the walls, ” said Kelly
Gallaher, an activist and Ryan constituent from Racine, who paid
$15 to attend and film the luncheon.

Those in suits were detectives from the Greenfield Police
Department, confirmed Detective Sgt. Mike Brunner, who was at the
event. Brunner told The Awl that six detectives, including himself,
provided security for the private event. The Greenfield department
has a total of seven detectives, meaning all but one served as
security for the event. Brunner told us that while the department
has provided detectives for Paul Ryan events in the past, all of
those were public meetings. Brunner said he “can’t think of any
other time we’ve done it.” The only private event the detectives
have ever worked security for was something like a Harley-Davidson
anniversary party, “where there are tens of thousands in
attendance.”

Tuesday’s Rotary Cub event saw, at most, 150 guests.

Brunner confirmed that three had been arrested and charged with
trespassing at a private event, which carries a fine around $30.
Additionally, one was charged with resisting arrest.

The police were there before the event started, at the request
of the Rotary Club, and, anticipating arrests, the police brought
wagons. Greenfield, along with other departments like West Allis,
provided an additional 30 to 35 uniformed officers to control a
group that the local CBS affiliate estimated at 100 protesters and
75 Ryan supporters (and which Gallaher estimated to be 80
protesters and 30 supporters). Brunner estimates the total
department force to be about 58… including the chief.

While none of the six detectives providing security for the
event did so on overtime, Brunner confirmed to The Awl that many of
the uniformed officers were paid overtime. He guessed that
approximately 25 got time-and-a-half.

In 2009,
a memo from a FreedomWorks volunteer and co-founder of the
group Right Principles named Bob MacGuffie encouraged those
attending the summer recess town halls under the banner of the
fledgling Tea Party to “rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s
presentation. Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge
the Rep’s statements early” and “rattle him, get him off his
prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand
up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these
opportunities before he even takes questions.” Looks like the Ryan
attendees finally got MacGuffie’s memo.

Of course, FreedomWorks, and other groups like Americans for
Prosperity, denied any relationship with MacGuffie, his ilk and
their methods. FreedomWorks insisted that it discouraged such
confrontation.

But one year after that memo, MacGuffie
was a marquee speaker at a Brewster, NY FreedomWorks event
alongside its founder and chairman Dick Armey.

Tea Party organizers, it seems, expected the sort of
boisterousness on display in Wisconsin this summer. Except it seems
they thought it would be their team again. In May, FreedomWorks
Vice President of Communications Adam Brandon
told HuffPo, “I would expect the August town halls to be the
ones that get pretty exciting, in the sense where you’re going to
have more turnout, and that’s mainly because the folks on our side
got used to the August town halls.”

Brandon did not return our calls for comment on the Ryan event
(or the fiscal responsibility of using taxpayer organizations for
private security).

Seeing shaky handicam footage of Ryan doggystyling the dais
while being repeatedly shouted down by the audience is like
bizarre-o-world footage from
2009. That crazy summer featured congressional town halls
packed with very vocal protesters who let their reps have it with
both barrels. I attended a number of these town halls for North
Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan. While his were largely civil, if
tense, they did occasionally devolve into the behavior on show at
Ryan’s recent private event. Freedomworks organizers were even
helpful enough to
send an August Action Kit to prepare me to confront Dorgan.

Interestingly enough, FreedomWorks has already preemptively
called Ryan a chicken. A May email to members of Congress from
FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe warned to not “bury your head in
the sand.”

Ryan’s last free pubic appearance was in April. (By no means is
Ryan’s absence abnormal though; the current political climate has
made being a pantywaist the norm. A survey by No Labels found that
only
44 percent of all Congress scheduled open meetings this
recess.)

Kibbe continued, “Republicans must not shy away from this
[Medicare] issue. Expect Democrats to attack, but not fighting back
will only make it worse. BOLD action is needed.”

Unfortunately for Ryan’s future in his district, the only bold
action he’s displayed lately is ridiculing those constituents who
disagree with him.

Given the opportunity to take the high road and let security do
its thing, or talk smack even as a wall of taxpayer-provided police
beef stood between the Congressman and his opposition, Paul Ryan
chose the latter, mocking his constituents as they were forced from
the room. “What I think is… is unique and exciting about this is
Rotarians got the $15 out of them,” quipped Ryan as one man was
removed.

Kelly Gallaher was floored by Ryan’s behavior. Over the years
she said she’s been to at least 25 to 30 of Ryan’s listening
sessions in the region and she’s never seen him disrespect his
opposition so outwardly. “He usually just tap-dances around
questions or criticism,” she said, noting that Ryan joked to Rotary
Club attendees that they should pray for one of the arrested.

Ryan may be increasingly blustery when he has such the bulk of
the local police department at his disposal. When he was confronted
at a Labor Day parade with his family, he was the far more contrite
and zipped-lip Representative described by Gallaher.

Gallaher said Ryan is more emboldened and egotistical than she’s
ever seen, even as she has watched his support in his district
erode, especially with the elderly. It’s a development Democratic
activists in Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district can hardly
believe, after long facing the seemingly impossible task of
unseating him. For the first time, Ryan, pretty much by his own
doing, is maybe—but probably not, but just
maybe—vulnerable.

Ryan got the last word in on the senior citizen who disrupted
him as the man was pulled from the event by baggy-blazered
detectives. “I hope he took his blood pressure medication today,”
cracked Ryan.

It’s a simple joke that takes on a whole new dark tone given his
proposed reforms. It’s also just one more bit of evidence of his
obliviousness in Wisconsin as he becomes a national household
name.